Federal laboratories are ultimately driven
by the goals and objectives of their funding
agencies and offices, and they remain
the bedrock for delivering outcomes for
national defense as well as national safety
and security. Technology Transfer Offices
can help companies access the innovations
and capabilities of the federal laboratories
by increasing the programmatic value they
place on such engagements, and actively
encourage or support the interactions. In
effect, this approach will benefit their needs,
too, by making a product or service readily
available, in a robust way, at economically
viable price points.

There are also more likely to be further
and future advancements of the technology
available in due course driven by the product
development efforts of the commercial
company. This outcome would undoubtedly
reduce sustainability costs for the agency as
their needs would continue to be serviced
directly from private funds. As noted earlier,
extending and expanding programs such
as SBV and TCF would likely increase
private sector engagement with the federal
laboratories.

Government agencies also can help with
mission alignment. A good example of this
approach was the space race in the 1960s.
There are also several other examples
where the government has been the catalyst
for successful technologies that generate
commercial breakthrough opportunities.
Agencies should be setting goals and
metrics and providing financial incentives
for academia, federal labs, and the private
sector to work together to meet these goals.
Nevertheless, the government needs to avoid
picking winners and losers because only the
market can determine the future value of
any technology. Once the “macro” level goals
are set for alignment, individuals (scientists,
innovators and engineers) need to be trained
on the behavioral science of how better to
understand the “micro”’ level needs of the
others in the chain.

The NSF (National Science Foundation)I-Corps and the Fed-Tech programdeliver value by helping innovators andentrepreneurs understand product market fitthrough experiential training in discoveringneeds. Similar programs, designed to alignfundamental research to commercialization,would go a long way towards improvingthe situation. The Innovation ResearchInterchange (formerly known as theIndustrial Research Institute) is helpingto support match-making initiativesthrough its Federal Laboratory ActivityGroup (FLAG). Specific areas of focus are:Energy/Sustainability, Advanced Materials/Manufacturing, Cyber Security/DataAnalytics and Robotics/Automation.

The government makes a good partner
because it is a natural convener of new
discoveries, can sustain much longer term
strategies compared with industry, and is